Threat to kill WA attorney

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The WA Police are hunting white supremacist Jack van Tongeren after they uncovered threats to kill the state Attorney-General, Jim McGinty.

Mr McGinty pulled out of a meeting of Australian attorneys-general in Adelaide yesterday after being warned about the threats. Police have provided extra protection for him and his family and for other figures allegedly threatened by Mr van Tongeren's neo-Nazi Australian Nationalists Movement.

"There was a serious threat and it was not about property damage; it was about personal violence," Mr McGinty
said. "It's a worry for me that my family might have been exposed."

Armed police investigating a fresh wave of racist graffiti across Perth on Thursday raided Mr van Tongeren's home at Gingin, 85 kilometres north of Perth, and seized a number of items.

A state-wide alert has gone out for Mr van Tongeren and a second man, the head of the organisation's so-called paramilitary arm. Several other associates are in custody facing criminal damage charges.

Mr Van Tongeren reportedly sent a videotaped message to media outlets, attacking people he believed supported multiracialism. These included Mr McGinty, Prime Minister John Howard, ASIO head Dennis Richardson "and all MPs who actively support Asianisation and multiracialism and the destruction of our Australian constitution and Aussie way of life". Mr Howard said in Perth that the threats were ridiculous and that he would not be drawn into an argument with Mr van Tongeren. "I don't think he is a significant public figure," he said.

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Mr McGinty said he often received threats, but took this plot seriously because of Mr van Tongeren's past. "These people are obviously capable (of) very serious criminal acts."

Mr van Tongeren was the architect of a racist bombing campaign in Perth in the 1980s. He was jailed in 1989 and served 12 years for conspiracy, arson, theft, assault and fraud.

The notorious Asian-hater is the son of a Javanese father. In 1989 Rudi van Tongeren confirmed that his son had disowned him. Rudi van Tongeren said his son had served in Vietnam and came back "abnormal".

In publicity material produced in the 1980s Mr van Tongeren described Hitler as the "great one" and referred to himself as simply "leader".

Through the 1980s the ANM scattered WA with racist posters. The campaign of racial vilification turned uglier when the group began firebombing Asian restaurants and carried out burglaries to finance their operations.

During this period, ANM member David Locke was murdered by two associates because they believed he was a police informer.